Answering the New Anti-Zionists

The Jewish people's rights to a sovereign state in their historic homeland.

Although Israel won its existence more than 50 years ago, a new and insidious critique has begun to spread, attacking anew the legitimacy of Israel's very establishment as a Jewish state. The new line does not come from Tehran or Riyadh but, surprisingly from largely European intellectuals and certain voices on the fringe American Left, surfacing recently in The Guardian and The New York Review of Books. It proposes the elimination of Israel and is generally accompanied by calls to establish a bi-national Palestinian-Jewish state in its place.1 The new anti-Zionists invariably start with the claim that there are no Jewish rights to sovereignty in Israel, or that, in any case, Jewish nationalism is inherently unjust.

"You can have criticism of the State of Israel but it is entirely different to say it shouldn't exist. It is applying to the Jew a different standard than you apply to anyone else."

Curiously, this campaign is accompanied by no corresponding questions about the validity of any other of the more than 190 states that belong to the UN, whether they resemble Israel or not. There is no such scrutiny of the mini-states of Europe -- from Liechtenstein to the Vatican -- or the multi-tribal states of Africa, many of which are breaking down. Nor is there any questioning of the rights of expressly Catholic, Protestant, or Muslim states to exist. The exclusive focus on Israel raises troubling questions about the real motives of these commentators. As Michael Gove, assistant editor of the Times of London, recently noted: "I do not know how newspapers can get away with it. You can have criticism of the State of Israel but it is entirely different to say it shouldn't exist. It is applying to the Jew a different standard than you apply to anyone else."2

Equally remarkable, for all the singular focus on Israel, the attack on Jewish statehood avoids even the slightest consideration of the specifics of Israel's case. The attackers fail to examine the legal or political consequences of Israel's national expression as a Jewish state (perhaps because they find none) with regard to its non-Jews, religious and racial equality, or the civil and political equality of all citizens. They also ignore the specific historical circumstances and perils that gave rise to the need for Israel to identify Jewishly. In short, it is an attack on Israel without regard to the cost, benefit, or uniqueness of Jewish statehood -- indeed, without any grounding at all. That becomes clear after a brief examination of the history, the law, and the facts surrounding Israel's existence as a Jewish state.

The Rights of States and the Rights of Israel

International law has traditionally held that in order to be defined as a state, political communities must meet four qualifications: First, there must be a people; second, there must be a territory; third, there must be a government; and fourth, there must be a capacity to enter into relations with other states. In advocating Israel's admission to the UN in 1948, the U.S. representative to the UN Security Council argued that Israel fulfilled these conditions. In fact, the new attacks on Israel's rights are particularly ironic since Jewish nationhood preceded the emergence of most modern nation-states by thousands of years. Still, today's discourse has created doubts about the basis of Jewish peoplehood and the connection of the Jewish people to Israel's territory. Whether the new assault on Israel is a byproduct of the radical secularization of certain intellectual circles who have no understanding of Jewish history, or whether it emanates from a more insidious anti-Semitism that has been re-born, its handmaiden is the general ignorance that is rampant about Israel's unique roots.

The Jewish claim to a right of sovereignty in the Land of Israel (Eretz Israel; Palestine) emerged in the last century for three essential reasons:

·First, it was not a new claim, but rather a reassertion of a historic right that had never been conceded or forgotten. Even after the destruction of the last Jewish commonwealth in the first century, the Jewish people maintained their own autonomous political and legal institutions: the Davidic dynasty was preserved in Baghdad until the thirteenth century through the rule of the Exilarch (Resh Galuta), while the return to Zion was incorporated into the most widely practiced Jewish traditions, including the end of the Yom Kippur service and the Passover Seder, as well as in everyday prayers. Thus, Jewish historic rights were kept alive in Jewish historical consciousness.

·Second, the security of the Jewish people in the diaspora became completely untenable as the threat from anti-Semitic persecution and assault was replaced in the twentieth century with the threat of actual annihilation -- or genocide -- as demonstrated by the Holocaust. While this threat initially was focused in Europe, it soon extended to the Middle East, as newly independent Arab states came to view their ancient Jewish communities as European foreigners and systematically violated their basic human rights, either by denying them protection or by confiscating their properties. From the 1840 Damascus blood libel to the 1941 farhud (pogrom) against the Jews of Baghdad, an uneasy Arab-Jewish coexistence that existed earlier collapsed even before the rise of the State of Israel. Far from receding, the danger of rabid anti-Semitism persists, thereby necessitating a strong Jewish state that can serve as an ultimate refuge for Jews under threat, anywhere. The Jewish people have learned that they must not return to a state of powerlessness.

·Third, the steady growth of assimilation threatened to eliminate Jewish communities worldwide. The existence of a Jewish state, whose public culture is based on the unique practices of the Jewish people, is the best guarantor for Jewish continuity -- both religious and non-religious -- and the birth of a new Jewish civilization that can continue to contribute to the world community.3

Israel's Historic Basis: The Unbroken Jewish Connection with the Land of Israel

Israel is the only state that was created in the last century whose legitimacy was recognized by both the League of Nations and the United Nations.4 The League of Nations Mandate that was issued by the victorious powers of World War I did not create the rights of the Jewish people to a national home in Palestine, but rather recognized a pre-existing right, for the links of the Jewish people to their historic land were well-known and accepted in the previous century by world leaders from President John Adams to Napoleon Bonaparte to British Foreign Secretary Lord Palmerston.5 These rights were preserved by the successor organization to the League of Nations, the United Nations, under Article 80 of the UN Charter. The ancient, even biblical, association of the Jewish people with the Land of Israel was accepted in the Judeo-Christian tradition as a historical axiom.

Since the loss of the Second Jewish Commonwealth to Roman legions in 70 CE, the Jewish people never lost their connection to the Land of Israel.

From a legal standpoint, an opportunity arose to assert these historically recognized rights. Since 1517, Eretz Israel had been under the sovereignty of the Ottoman Empire; when the Ottomans lost to the British in 1918, in the Treaty of Sevres they surrendered sovereignty over their Asiatic territories outside of Turkey. A vacuum of sovereignty was created in which the historic claim of the Jewish people could be raised. Yet the Jewish people themselves had begun raising it much earlier.

Since the loss of the Second Jewish Commonwealth to Roman legions in 70 CE, and the destruction of the Temple in Jerusalem, the Jewish people never lost their connection to the Land of Israel (Palestine). The land, in fact, was never claimed to be the unique home of another nation, but rather was a province of other larger empires. As the renowned historian of the Middle East, Bernard Lewis, has written:

From the end of the Jewish state in antiquity to the beginning of British rule, the area now designated by the name Palestine was not a country and had no frontiers, only administrative boundaries; it was a group of provincial subdivisions, by no means always the same, within a larger entity.6

In the interim, the Jewish people never stopped exercising their claim to the land. Lewis, in fact, notes "there had been a steady movement of Jews to the Holy Land throughout the centuries."7 In 135 CE Jews took part in the Bar Kochba revolt against imperial Rome and even re-established their capital in Jerusalem. Defeated by the most brutal of the Roman legions under the command of the emperor Hadrian, Jews were forbidden to reside in Jerusalem for nearly five hundred years. Once a year on the ninth of the Hebrew month of Av, they were allowed to weep at the remains of their destroyed Temple at a spot that came to be called "the Wailing Wall." In the meantime, the Roman authorities renamed Judea as Palestina in order to obliterate the memory of Jewish nationhood.

During this period, the Jewish national center shifted from Judea to the Galilee, where hundreds of synagogues were erected from the Mediterranean to the Golan Heights. Jewish law was then codified in the Mishnah by Judah Ha-Nasi. Despite the catastrophic losses in Jewish lives during the wars against the Romans, Jews still constituted the majority of the population of the Galilee in the fourth century. In the Upper Galilee village of Pek'in there remained a continuous Jewish presence from the Roman era to the rise of the State of Israel.

With the defeat of the Eastern Roman Empire (Byzantine) by Persian armies in 614, the Jewish people recaptured Jerusalem and made it again their capital briefly. Yet Byzantine rule was soon restored and Jews were forced again to vacate Jerusalem until the defeat of the Byzantines in 638 by the Islamic armies of Caliph Omar, who again opened the city for Jewish resettlement. Eretz Israel became a part of successive Muslim empires -- the Rashidun (the immediate followers of the Prophet Muhammad, who ruled from Medina), the Umayyads (who ruled from Damascus), the Abbasids (who ruled from Baghdad), and the Fatimids (who ruled from Cairo).

Under Islam, Jews were to be protected as a "people of the book," but were nonetheless forced to pay discriminatory taxes like the jizya (poll tax) and the kharaj (land tax). The crushing burden of these land taxes led to a loss of Jewish land control in the Galilee during the first several centuries of Islamic rule. During the Crusader occupation of Eretz Israel, many Jews were physically slaughtered, especially in Jerusalem. Nevertheless, the great Jewish scholar and poet Rabbi Yehuda Halevi (1075-1141) still called for the mass immigration of Jews to the Land of Israel.8

The beginnings of Jewish recovery in Eretz Israel started with the defeat and expulsion of the Crusaders in 1187 by the Kurdish Muslim warrior Salah ad-Din who, like Caliph Omar, allowed the Jews to resettle in Jerusalem. For example, between 1209 and 1211, three hundred rabbis made their way from France and southern England to settle in Jerusalem, once it was safe again to do so. They were joined by rabbis from North Africa and Egypt. The great Jewish scholar Nachmanides (Ramban) erected a synagogue in Jerusalem in 1267 that still stands in the Old City.

Even before the rise of modern political Zionism, Jews continued to stream into the land from Yemen and Lithuania. By 1864, a clear-cut Jewish majority emerged in Jerusalem.

In the 13th century, Jewish families restored the community of Safed, which would become the international center for the study of Jewish mysticism by the sixteenth century. Reinforced by their rising numbers, Jews became assertive again about their claim in Jerusalem, so that the pope forbade sea captains from transporting Jews to Palestine in 1428.9 Despite the hardships, Jews continued to return. The great commentator of the Mishnah, Ovadia Bartinura, left Italy to settle in Jerusalem in 1488; his tomb is at the foot of the Mt. of Olives.

The influx of Jewish refugees from the Spanish Inquisition in 1492 into the Ottoman Empire, which took control of Eretz Israel in 1517, led to a substantial expansion of the Jewish presence in Safed, Hebron, and Tiberias, where Sultan Sulaiman the Magnificent allotted his Portuguese Jewish advisor, Don Joseph Nasi, land grants for Jewish resettlement. Even before the rise of modern political Zionism, Jews continued to stream into the land from Yemen and Lithuania, whose numbers included the students of the halachic scholar the Vilna Gaon in 1809-1811. By 1864, a clear-cut Jewish majority emerged in Jerusalem, more than half a century before the arrival of the British Empire, the issuing of the Balfour Declaration, and the establishment of the League of Nations Mandate.

The Palestinian Arabs Include Waves of Arab Immigrants

During the restoration of the Jewish presence in the Land of Israel, the overwhelming impression of Western visitors in the 19th century was that there were few Arab inhabitants. The British Consul General, James Finn, wrote in 1857 that "the country is in a considerable degree empty of inhabitants." He added that the land's "greatest need is that of a body of population."10 Mark Twain visited Eretz Israel in 1867, traveled through the Jezreel Valley, and related, "there is not a solitary village throughout its whole extent."11 Arthur Penrhyn Stanley, the great British cartographer, reached similar conclusions in 1881: "In Judea it is hardly an exaggeration to say that for miles and miles there was no appearance of life or habitation."12

Geographers had long concluded that it was improbable "that any but a small part of the present Arab population of Palestine is descended from the ancient inhabitants of the land"; indeed, according to their analysis, Palestine was "peopled by the drifting populations of Arabia, and to some extent by the backwash of its harbors."13 Additionally, the Ottomans settled Muslim populations as a buffer against Bedouin attacks; Ibrahim Pasha, the Egyptian ruler, brought Egyptian colonists with his army in the 1830s. It is noteworthy that the common Palestinian name al-Masri, used by a clan in Nablus, literally means "the Egyptian."14

Yet the Palestine Liberation Organization has perpetuated a myth, put forward on the world stage by Yasser Arafat at the United Nations in 1974, that "the Jewish invasion [of Palestine] began in 1881." Moreover, he asserted that there was already a large indigenous Arab population when the Jews arrived. His implicit message was that there was a well-entrenched Palestinian society in place before Israel's rebirth, a society that had rights superior to those of the returning Jews.

Yet it is now clear that during the years that the Jewish presence in Eretz Israel was restored, a huge Arab population influx transpired from neighboring countries as Arab immigrants sought to take advantage of higher wages and economic opportunities that resulted from Jewish settlement in the land. Indeed, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt concluded in 1939 that "Arab immigration into Palestine since 1921 has vastly exceeded the total Jewish immigration during the whole period."15

The Restoration of Israel Was Not a Product of European Imperialism

Another common argument put forward by the PLO is that Israel is really the product of European imperialism and hence it does not represent a legitimate national movement of its own. As a result, Zionism came to be portrayed in the Arab world as "a hyper-aggressive variant of colonialism."16 This perception has also penetrated the discourse of Israel's European detractors. Initially, it is true that the idea of a restored Jewish homeland received its greatest push from the declaration in 1917 of the British Foreign Secretary, Lord Balfour, who called for its establishment after the British defeat of the Ottoman Empire. Yet, ironically, during the subsequent years of the British Mandate over Palestine, European (and especially British) imperial policies actually obstructed the emergence of the Jewish national home.

First, the territory of Transjordan was cut off from the Palestine Mandate and granted by the British to the Hashemite dynasty from Arabia, who had lost their ancestral homeland, the Hijaz, to the Saudi clan of eastern Arabia. Second, the British sought to further partition the remaining territory of western Palestine into Jewish and Arab states, reducing the area for Jewish settlement even more. Finally, with the 1939 White Paper, the British restricted Jewish immigration into Palestine just as Nazi Germany began its conquest of Europe and its Holocaust against European Jewry.

In this context, it is not surprising that Jewish underground movements waged an anti-colonial war in the 1940s against continuing British rule. In other words, Israel was anti-imperialist when it first emerged. By contrast, the Arab states at the time were aligned with the imperial powers. The Arab states that invaded the nascent State of Israel fielded armies that were trained and supplied by the French and British Empires. During Israel's War of Independence, British officers commanded the Arab Legion of Transjordan, while the Royal Air Force, defending Egyptian airspace, fought the Israeli Air Force over the Sinai Peninsula in 1949. And the nations of the world did not lift a finger when the Jews of Jerusalem were surrounded and faced annihilation, even though the UN had called for internationalization of the city. Only the Israel Defense Forces broke Jerusalem's siege and saved its Jewish residents. In short, Jewish independence in Israel was won by a native and indigenous community acting in its own defense with little help from outside.

Is Jewish Statehood Discriminatory?

Today, some argue that Israel's very establishment as a Jewish state discriminates against non-Jewish Israelis, even, as a recent article claimed, rendering them second-class citizens.17 Such a claim is not only utterly false, as any student of Israeli law or politics knows; it also seriously distorts the harmless -- and quite beautiful -- ways in which states can reflect the identity of their majority communities, or pay tribute to their founding histories, without infringing the rights of individual citizens. Israel's critics go too far when they seek to cloak Israel's mere communal expression in the inflammatory garb of religious discrimination.

Nearly every country in the world boasts one majority community, and nearly all reflect the cultural identity of that community in one way or another. The United States officially celebrates only Christian holidays; many European countries openly identify as either Catholic or Protestant; and many Muslim countries uncontroversially refer to themselves as an "Islamic Republic," whether they are democratic or not. For some, such identification is simply a sign of the spiritual persuasion of the majority; for others, it is homage to the story of the country's founding. There is nothing obviously wrong with such expression.

Indeed, in today's multi-culturalist environment, with a renaissance in public appreciation of communal identity, it is anachronistic to suggest that in the case of Israel, alone, communal identification is problematic. One can only wonder why Jewish national expression, with no discriminatory effect, is so uniquely hard to bear.18 Perhaps the reason stems from the history of opposition to Jewish statehood: it was first raised by Arab nationalists and religious Islamic radicals, who opposed Jewish rule on what they had deemed "Arab" soil. This opposition, though prominent in the rhetoric of Palestinian groups like Hamas today,19 is largely unacceptable in Western political discourse. That forces its proponents to reformulate their anti-Israel animus in the more universal language of rights and equality. Still, as convenient a target as it seems, Israel's self-expression as a Jewish state, like the communal identification of any state, has little bearing on questions of rights and equality.

The important point is not whether a state adopts some communal theme but whether it in fact discriminates: Are minority citizens equal under the law? Can they express their own heritage publicly and communally? Do they have the same opportunities for power and representation in the system, even the ability to become the majority? In short, are they first-class citizens?

Israeli Arab citizens are by law equal to Jewish citizens; they enjoy the same rights and are legally protected from discrimination.

For non-Jewish citizens of Israel, the answer to all these questions is "Yes. Unequivocally." Israeli Arab citizens are by law equal to Jewish citizens; they enjoy the same rights and are legally protected from discrimination. Non-Jews enjoy every freedom that democracies recognize, including freedom of worship, the free expression and exercise of religion, equality of financial, material, and employment opportunity, political power, and all legal rights. Indeed, Israel's Declaration of Independence demands nothing less.

According to the Declaration, the Jewish state "will ensure complete equality of social and political rights to all its inhabitants irrespective of religion, race or sex; it will guarantee freedom of religion, conscience, language, education and culture; it will safeguard the Holy Places of all religions." Israel's Arab citizens have, in fact, reached positions on Israel's Supreme Court and have elected powerful parties in the Israeli Knesset that fully participate in Israeli political life.

Some critics of Israel, often with questionable motives, exploit the nature of Israel's parliamentary political system to falsely depict Arab citizens as a vulnerable minority. Indeed they are -- but only inasmuch as all minorities in a parliamentary government that are outside the ruling coalition suffer some disadvantages. Israel contains a lively system of distinct communities living side-by-side, often vying for the same limited supply of the largely socialized national welfare and aid programs. Israeli Arabs, for example, compete with other minorities that do not typically reach the top -- ultra-Orthodox Jews, Russian immigrants, and religious Sephardim. That some of these groups sometimes do better than others does not show discrimination; it simply shows the system at work.

Most important, however, the disadvantages of political minorities in Israel have nothing to do with Israel's ceremonious identification as a Jewish state. Their situation will change if and when Israel transforms itself from a system of proportional representation, with each minority having a party to call its own, into a district-based election system. Many Israelis support such a change, though it has shortcomings, too. But even under the current, imperfect, political reality, Jewish and Arab citizens are equal under the law.

All this is not to deny that Israel has one special mission as a Jewish state -- albeit one that does not affect the rights of its non-Jewish citizens. Israel was built as a haven for Jewish refugees fleeing persecution. The legendary Israeli statesman Abba Eban referred to this aspect of Israel as a case of "international affirmative action," because it was designed to correct an inherent disadvantage suffered by a particular group throughout history, which has deprived them of a level playing field. Unfortunately, Jews still need a place of refuge from persecution. For that reason, diaspora Jews deserve the special treatment they receive in this one respect. When the Jewish community of Ethiopia stood defenseless against the onslaught of armed partisans in the 1991 civil war, or when Argentina's Jews became the target of scape-goating and attacks during the recent economic depression, or when Soviet Jews fled Communism, Israel alone opened its doors unconditionally.

For Jews seeking refuge in Israel, the state grants immediate citizenship. Nevertheless, a non-Jew enjoys the same right and opportunity to become a citizen of Israel as any other country offers, including the United States. And once a citizen, he or she enjoys all the rights and privileges granted by Israel's laws and government to the majority of its people, based on a principle of equality now enshrined in the basic law of the country and the fabric of its political culture.

Israeli Rights Versus Palestinian Rights

Still, regardless of the rights that Israel has granted its non-Jewish citizens, critics malign it on different grounds: that Palestinians boast a stronger claim for national sovereignty over the same land. This claim needs to be examined separately. In particular, was there, prior to Israel's establishment, a distinct Palestinian nationalism vying for its own separate place in the land?

The Palestinian Arabs originally saw themselves in the early 20th century as part of a greater Arab national movement. For much of the first half of the last century Arab states sought to unify as they supported various schemes for Arab unity. In Arabic there are, in fact, two terms for nationalism: qawmiyah -- loyalty to the Arab nation as a whole, and wataniyah -- loyalty to the local country in which one resides. For decades, qawmiyah was far more predominant for Palestinian Arabs.

For example, Bernard Lewis has written that while the Palestinian Arabs had a growing sense of identity with their struggle against Jewish immigration in the 1930s, still "their basic sense of corporate historic identity was, at different levels, Muslim or Arab or -- for some -- Syrian; it is significant that even by the end of the Mandate in 1948, after 30 years of separate Palestinian political existence, there were virtually no books in Arabic on the history of Palestine."20

Moreover, the 1947 Partition Plan still described the Palestinians as "Arabs" and called for an "Arab state" in Palestine alongside of a Jewish state. In May 1956, Ahmad Shuqairy, who would found the PLO eight years later, stated before the UN Security Council: "it is common knowledge that Palestine is nothing but southern Syria."21 In the early 1960s, many Palestinians looked to Egypt's Gamal Abdul Nasser as their leader as much as to any Palestinian. And there was no active movement of the Palestinians to separate the West Bank from Jordan or the Gaza Strip from Egypt to form a unique Palestinian state prior to 1967. Today, a third source of loyalty is emerging among Palestinian Arabs connected to Hamas or Islamic Jihad -- loyalty to the Islamic nation or umma. Hamas, after all, is the Palestinian branch of the Muslim Brotherhood, an organization with pan-Islamic ambitions.

Still, Israel recognizes that a unique Palestinian national identity exists today. But given its historical background, it is impossible to show that Palestinian nationalism has a claim to the Land of Israel superior to that of the Jews.

In the future, whatever Palestinian political entity emerges from part of the West Bank and Gaza Strip, it very well might decide to federate with the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan in 10 or 20 years, where a Palestinian majority already exists. In the Balkans, for example, it is difficult for Europeans to predict the future of Bosnia or Kosovo. Will their populations seek to unify with states containing the same ethnic makeup, so that Croats in Bosnia will merge with Croatia, while Kosovars will seek to unite with Albania? The same long-term question applies to the Palestinian territories after Arafat.

The Continuing Need for Jewish Statehood

Regardless, a uniquely Jewish democratic society will continue to exist in Israel, where it will serve as a vital refuge for Jews facing anti-Semitism from France, Russia, South America, or Yemen. Israel remains the only country that allows unconditional Jewish immigration. In a few years Israel will comprise the largest Jewish community in the world. Only the army of the Jewish people, the Israel Defense Forces, can protect that community.

Some now argue that Jews no longer face the existential threats that anti-Semitism once posed. It is even suggested that today's anti-Semitism is caused, not counteracted, by Israeli policy. But the recent experiences of Jews in Ethiopia, Argentina, and across Europe, along with the vile slurs about world Jewry on the part of Islamic leaders like Malaysia's Mohammed Mahathir, give lie to such euphoria. Anti-Semitism has existed for centuries, well before the rise of the State of Israel. Indeed, it could be argued that it is not the reality of Israeli policy that is causing the new anti-Semitism, but rather the prejudices of European editors who feature difficult anti-Israeli photographs, out of context, as lead news items, while downgrading serious cases of massacre, such as on the continent of Africa.

Today, world leaders are willing to admit that the harsh critique that Israel receives can be traced to older, anti-Semitic roots. For example, the president of the European Commission, Roman Prodi -- commenting on a new opinion poll showing that Israel is the country regarded by most ordinary Europeans as a threat to world peace -- said the results "point to the continued existence of a bias that must be condemned out of hand," and "to the extent that this may indicate a deeper, more general prejudice against the Jewish world, our repugnance is even more radical."22

There is even a new strain of anti-Semitism that has emerged in the radical opposition to globalization, which now targets Jews as a kind of transnational economic force and, in chillingly familiar terms, blames them for economic upheaval. The anti-Semitic threat, unfortunately, is alive and well.

Not only is Jewish security at stake but so is Jewish continuity. Throughout Jewish history, national independence was perceived as a condition for Jewish self-fulfillment.23 Redemption was tied to the idea of return. For that reason, the re-birth of Israel strengthened Jewish identity. A reversal of Jewish independence would clearly have the opposite effect. As things stand, Jewish creativity in the future will come increasingly out of Israel, as the Jewish state emerges as the primary center of Jewish life. Just as the Jewish people of the diaspora once contributed to the growth of modern civilization in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, it will be Jewish civilization in Israel that will be the key source of the Jewish contribution to world society in the twenty-first century. A strong Jewish state is essential for protecting the continuity of Jewish identity and its place in world affairs.

4. Address by Prime Minister Netanyahu to the United Nations General Assembly, September 24, 1998, Ministry of Foreign Affairs; http://www.mfa.gov.il/mfa/go.asp?MFAH0h3f0

5. Benjamin Netanyahu, A Place Among the Nations: Israel and the World (New York: Bantam, 1993), pp. 14-15. For the sake of historical perspective, one would do well to consider Ben-Gurion's first premise, the title deeds of the Jews to this land, which he presented on January 7, 1937, to the Peel Commission:

"I say on behalf of the Jews that the Bible is our Mandate, the Bible which was written by us, in our own language, in Hebrew, in this very country. That is our Mandate. It was only recognition of this right which was expressed in the Balfour Declaration."

6. Bernard Lewis, "The Palestinians and the PLO, A Historical Approach," Commentary, January 1975: 32.

About the Author

Dore Gold is President of the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs. Previously, he served as Israel's Ambassador to the United Nations (1997-1999). He is the author of Hatred's Kingdom: How Saudi Arabia Supports the New Global Terrorism (Regnery, 2003).
Jeffrey S. Helmreich is the author of numerous articles on Israel for American newspapers and journals. His most recent Jerusalem Viewpoints include: "Beyond Political Terrorism: The New Challenge of Transcendent Terror" (November 2001); "The Israel Swing Factor: How the American Jewish Vote Influences U.S. Elections" (January 2001); and "Journalistic License: Professional Standards in the Print Media's Coverage of Israel" (August 2001).

The opinions expressed in the comment section are the personal views of the commenters. Comments are moderated, so please keep it civil.

Visitor Comments: 15

(15)
mer,
January 27, 2004 12:00 AM

Great article!!!!!!!!!

(14)
Scot,
December 29, 2003 12:00 AM

G-d Wants Hate Gone...

Dore Gold continues to stand up for and defend Israel, just as we all should. As our famous sage Hillel said many years ago, "...if I am not for myself, who will be for me?" While most of the world would seemingly prefer the destruction of the State of Israel and all Jews, G-d has other plans...

(13)
Anonymous,
December 2, 2003 12:00 AM

DORE GOLD'S ELOQUENCE

Everything Dore Gold has written, you can find it on the website of JCPA.org, should be read by all people, both Jews and non-Jews. He hits the mark every time!

(12)
Helga,
November 28, 2003 12:00 AM

The whole antisemitism and antizionism starts and ends with the teachings of the church which I personally find of being non-historical. I started reading of who Jesus was and who Judas was, it is quite an eye opening of misleading historical facts in detriment of the Jews. Since I am self taught, I could share in the future further comments of books I read from scholars. I think that history is the key to combat the hate mongers.

(11)
Zahr,
November 28, 2003 12:00 AM

Anti-Jewish propaganda

A clip
"It is not easy to think rationally. While in a Malaysia, I had the opportunity to read a interesting book, “The International Jew”, i.e. “The Protocols of the Elders of Zion,” by the famous automobile tycoon, Henry Ford. The book was in every major bookstore in Malaysia (and perhaps every Muslim country in the world) and spoke about “how the Jewish peoples had a corporate plan to trick and use America to take over the world”! I checked the internet and found the book easily. As I read, it made you have an intense hate for anything Jewish or American. Since Malaysia is a Muslim country I am sure this book had a wide reading and that the majority of the population wholeheartedly felt they are completely justified now in despising all Jews and Americans due to this evil conspiracy."

http://www.preteristarchive.com/Preterism/james-timothy_p_03_01.html

(10)
joshua spiegelman,
November 28, 2003 12:00 AM

read peters' "from time immemorial"

do your own research and read joan peters' "from time immemorial: the source of the arab-jewish conflict over palestine" and rabbi abraham j. heschel's "israel, an echo of eternity". the information exists to counter, refute, and dissolve all the lies and misinformation masquerading as the voice of freedom and justice. it is incumbant upon every jew and person of good will to keep reading, communicating and organizing in whatever way possible so we can transform the current climate of lies, falsehood and hatred into truth and compassion.

(9)
Rodrigo Sacca,
November 25, 2003 12:00 AM

What Is It With The Nations Of The World?

Why are they always talking about us and looking at what we do or not do? Nobody seems to care much about the Kurds, the Basques, the Corsicans or even the Native-American peoples. The nations of the world don't want us in their midst but they also not want us to have a country of our own. I'm not talking here about individuals who may be sympathetic to the the jews or even those who are indifferent, but about the vast numbers of people who evidently are disturbed by our very existence. If they really thought our covenant with G-D was no longer standing, or that never was such a convenant, they should pay little attention to us. But no, they are convinced that we rule the world, that we are vicious financers and aggressive negotiators and that we drink the blood from children -khas bekhalila! Please, mind your own business!!!

(8)
Jeff,
November 25, 2003 12:00 AM

Superb

Bravo!
This synopsis was excellent. The brief history lesson is appreciated. Those who blame Israel in particular and Jews in general for the world's woes should be forced to read this treatise.

(7)
Hugh,
November 25, 2003 12:00 AM

Where The Truth Hurts

An excellent article to which your readers need to email this article to every person on this planet, even though to some - the Truth May Hurt.

(6)
Anonymous,
November 25, 2003 12:00 AM

Israel "Happened"

Why must Israel continue to defend it's right to exist when it does, in fact exist?

The Europeans conquered North America through military force, genocide, treachery, transfer of populations and oppression yet there are no UN sactions against Canada or the United States. Are the Celtic of people of Britain not the "longest occupied people"? Why doesn't the UN sanction the Anglo Saxons in London? There is an entire generation of Israeli children who were born in Israel and who had no choice of birthplace. Are they not citizens of the country of their birth despite how others might feel about Israel's re-creation? Would someone say African-Americans are less American because their place of birth was the product of a crime? Where does the UN draw the line between settling differences according to an international law and engineering a planet that doesn't recognize the propensity of humans to migrate, for civilizations to be born and die and for the Jews to leave and return to place that is theirs by virtue of a more than two thousand year old deed? Europeans tolerated, facilitated and caused the murder of 6 million Jews. It does not surprise me they side with Arabs in the Middle East conflict. If Jews were Muslim, there would be no problem with the state of Israel among Arabs. Israel is the official place of a non-Islamic religion and becasue it's close and small, a good place to start to make the entire planet one big ugly homogeneous blob of Islam.

The UN has turned itself into an expensive, racist, unjust collection of stupid excuses and it's time is running out. I appreciate others reminding the uneducated of the history of the Jewish state because the young ones charging through the streets, breaking windows and waving their signs have been lied to and I respect the truth for it's own sake.

(5)
jerry,
November 24, 2003 12:00 AM

an excellent article

this information needs to be more frequently and widely disseminated to the world, repeatedly.

(4)
Anonymous,
November 24, 2003 12:00 AM

The anti Jewish feelings is rooted in existential questions which Islam has failed to address.

The recitation of Jewish history was brillant; the new anti- Jewish feeling has roots further back in Abraham's reluctant denial of Ishmael and preference for Issac, in Sarah's insistence that Hagar be ousted from the house and her insistence that Ishmael not receive the blessing that was intended to Issac.If Israel conceded to every Palestinian demand it would not satisfy the thirst of Muslims in the region possibly worldwide to drive B' nai Yisrael into the sea. The matter of who has the right to the land of Israel is an existential question with which Islam has failed to contend .There are one billion Muslims and not a single scholar has bothered to ask why a single state comprised of a Jewish majority the only one in the world is so threatening. If all Jews wished to go home, Israel would be at a lost to accomodate us all.

(3)
JULIUS ROMANOFF,
November 23, 2003 12:00 AM

Anti-Semitism's Role

Dore Gold's excellent historical review left me with a better understanding of the current bias in the world's media re. Israel. At the same time I hypothesize that there is a purpose to all the hatred voiced regarding Jews. As the call to return to Israel is not heeded by Jews living in comfort, as myself in the United States, it might be the stimulus to bring us to live in the promised land. Faced with hatred, and reacting to lies so easily accepted by our neighbors, it makes sense to live in the state of Israel. The assimilation concept is still a pipe dream. The underlying prejudice rises up when conditions worsen in the world's economic or political spheres. Is anti-semitism part of an over-all plan to get Jews to return to Israel?

(2)
Anonymous,
November 23, 2003 12:00 AM

Couldn't even read this

I lasted about one paragraph -- it was too upsetting and I couldn't read any further.

(1)
Anonymous,
November 23, 2003 12:00 AM

fantastic historical review

My anguish about the meteoric rise in anti-Semitism finds no comfort in solutions that I don't see forthcoming from appropriate leaders, writers, politicians and universities, either from within Israel itself or from the rest of the world.

My nephew is having his bar mitzvah and I am thinking of a gift. In the old days, the gift of choice was a fountain pen, then a Walkman, and today an iPod. But I want to get him something special. What do you suggest?

The Aish Rabbi Replies:

Since this event celebrates the young person becoming obligated in the commandments, the most appropriate gift is, naturally, one that gives a deeper understanding of the Jewish heritage and enables one to better perform the mitzvot! (An iPod, s/he can get anytime.)

With that in mind, my favorite gift idea is a tzedakah (charity) box. Every Jew should have a tzedakah box in his home, so he can drop in change on a regular basis. The money can then be given to support a Jewish school or institution -- in your home town or in Israel (every Jews’ “home town”). There are beautiful tzedakah boxes made of wood and silver, and you can see a selection here.

For boys, a really beautiful gift is a pair of tefillin, the black leather boxes which contain parchments of Torah verses, worn on the bicep and the head. Owning a pair of Tefillin (and wearing them!) is an important part of Jewish identity. But since they are expensive (about $400), not every Bar Mitzvah boy has a pair. To make sure you get kosher Tefillin, see here.

In 1944, the Nazis perpetrated the Children's Action in the Kovno Ghetto. That day and the next, German soldiers conducted house-to-house searches to round up all children under age 12 (and adults over 55) -- and sent them to their deaths at Fort IX. Eventually, the Germans blew up every house with grenades and dynamite, on suspicion that Jews might be in hiding in underground bunkers. They then poured gasoline over much of the former ghetto and incinerated it. Of the 37,000 Jews in Kovno before the Holocaust, less than 10 percent survived. One of the survivors was Rabbi Ephraim Oshri, who later published a stirring collection of rabbinical responsa, detailing his life-and-death decisions during the Holocaust. Also on this date, in 1937, American Jews held a massive anti-Nazi rally in New York City's Madison Square Garden.

In a letter to someone who found it difficult to study Torah, the 20th century sage the Chazon Ish wrote:

"Some people find it hard to be diligent in their Torah studies. But the difficulty persists only for a short while - if the person sincerely resolves to submerge himself in his studies. Very quickly the feelings of difficulty will go away and he will find that there is no worldly pleasure that can compare with the pleasure of studying Torah diligently."

Although actions generally have much greater impact than thoughts, thoughts may have a more serious effect in several areas.

The distance that our hands can reach is quite limited. The ears can hear from a much greater distance, and the reach of the eye is much farther yet. Thought, however, is virtually limitless in its reach. We can think of objects millions of light years away, and so we have a much greater selection of improper thoughts than of improper actions.

Thought also lacks the restraints that can deter actions. One may refrain from an improper act for fear of punishment or because of social disapproval, but the privacy of thought places it beyond these restraints.

Furthermore, thoughts create attitudes and mindsets. An improper action creates a certain amount of damage, but an improper mindset can create a multitude of improper actions. Finally, an improper mindset can numb our conscience and render us less sensitive to the effects of our actions. We therefore do not feel the guilt that would otherwise come from doing an improper act.

We may not be able to avoid the occurrence of improper impulses, but we should promptly reject them and not permit them to dwell in our mind.

Today I shall...

make special effort to avoid harboring improper thoughts.

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